


Statement ########: Real Life

by LiquidMirrors



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Constructed Reality, Dissociation, Existentialism, Memory Alteration, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Spoilers for The Magnus Archives Season 5, Suburbia, Suburbian Hell, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27256876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiquidMirrors/pseuds/LiquidMirrors
Summary: On mundanity.
Relationships: None
Kudos: 4





	Statement ########: Real Life

[TAPE CLICKS.]

[THE AIR IS STILL. THERE ARE THE SOUNDS OF SPRINKLERS GOING OFF IN THE BACKGROUND. A CAR DRIVES BY, ITS MOTOR PITCHED A BIT TOO DEEP TO SOUND NORMAL, AS IF IT'S EMITTING A DYING GROAN AS IT CHUGS IN AND OUT OF EARSHOT.]

[VOICES CHATTER IN THE BACKGROUND, BUT THEY ARE TOO EXCITED FOR THE UNUSUAL SENSE OF CALM THAT DRAPES OVER THE NEIGHBORHOOD STREET. GLASSES CLINK GENTLY.]

[FOOTSTEPS.]

STATEMENT BEGINS

Jason’s scrambled eggs are flavorless. They taste like absolutely nothing. When he uses his fork to scrape them off the place and into his mouth, he only feels their cold, wet, and slimy composure slide across his tongue and slither down his throat. Scrambled eggs are not supposed to slither. He turns to his wife and smiles, a beaming grin that wrinkles his face into something that resembles a perfect picture of the suburban father.

“These are delicious, Honey.” Jason’s voice, like his smile, is perfect, and his wife makes a tittering sound of approval as she rushes out of the kitchen to wake the kids up for school. When she turns around, Jason does not remember her face. When she leaves the kitchen, he does not remember her at all.

Jason’s wife returns with their kids, a boy and a girl. They make tired, wailing noises that should accompany voices, but they aren’t registerable to Jason’s ears. They are hungry, and a little cranky to have been woken from their slumber. Jason hears his wife’s heels click along the checkerboard-tiled floor as she grabs more of the slop to spoon it onto her spawns’ plates. 

Jason smiles down at his children and asks them how they slept. They warble and writhe, the hair on his daughter spooling through her mouth as her teeth blind and blink expressions wide. Jason’s son splays out his hands in large circular motions that remind Jason of the spinning spokes of a wheel. As he does this, Jason’s son falls through his chair and the floor, and Jason, his daughter, and his wife laugh and laugh and laugh. In the very back of Jason’s mind, folded away in the depths, he knows he never married, and he knows he has no children.

A long time ago, Jason had feared responsibility. He would lay awake in bed at night and wonder what the future had in store for him - most of all, Jason was afraid that every day would be like the next, molding into a single gray line of monotony that spanned what would become his life. Now, though, Jason had nothing to fear, nothing at all indeed! For he has a wife who loves him, and two beautiful children who adore him, although it is quite odd how his pictures of them in his wallet are never fully developed, their smiling faces streaked and pulled off the shiny photo paper like the ink smears of his daughter’s finger-paintings.

As Jason gets into his car and heads off to work, he weaves his way through the neighborhood, all houses, all homes, all filled with smiling faces just like his. As he drives to work eagerly, his thoughts run through his head - he has a very important presentation to give to the Sales Board, and he just so wishes that he will get that promotion he’s been waiting for. 

Jason doesn’t know why he wants it so badly, and as he follows this train of thought, he cannot remember his hourly wage.

His car turns a corner, and he catches a glimpse of Hailey as she walks down the street to her bus stop.

School is something that Hailey doesn’t enjoy. Whenever she steps foot within the building, the lights begin to blind her and give her headaches, and the windows aren’t windows at all, instead mirrors with labels on them to “imagine yourself in ten years”. Whenever Hailey stares at her own reflection, she sometimes sees something flicker - whether it be her face or something behind her, it doesn’t matter, since she always looks away before she can name what had made her uneasy. Sometimes, her reflection watches her out of the corners of its eyes.

The teachers at Hailey’s school always talk about the future, the future that students build for themselves. They talk of college lectures and university scholarships, but Hailey knows there’s not a single institution for miles around. They say that “application season is just around the corner!” when they have been saying this for what feels like months. Hailey cannot be sure, though, as there are no windows to watch the seasons through and no clocks to see how much time has passed, and when she attempts to picture the grass of her front lawn, all she can see is a yawning abyss where there should be fine blades and mulch.

Hailey doesn’t really know what she wants for her own life, from her future, but she cannot think about that now - right now, she has to get through geometry, but her teacher keeps assigning proofs that don’t add up. Whenever Hailey attempts to ask for help, the teacher laughs at her, saying how funny it is that she can’t complete such a simple problem. Her pupils split and scatter. Later that day, the anatomy teacher ridicules her when she says that the frogs have too many legs. They’ve always been like that! Are you stupid? He guffaws and clutches at his own stomach, fingers digging painfully into the flesh of his abdomen. In history, Hailey’s classmates snicker and sneer when she asks about the atomic bomb, with one opening their textbook to show her that the bombs were consumed as an act of showmanship during a peace convention on an island that isn’t there. Then, Hailey’s classmates’ noses begin to bleed.

When Hailey comes home from school, the front door of her house leads no-where. When she opens it, there is only the path and driveway in front of her, leading out to the road on the very next morning. She has no time to finish her homework, no time to rest, no time to empty herself of the burden of papers and information that keeps piling onto her already exhausted mind. Instead, she is forced to continue. After all, she has tried the windows, and they only lead to the inside of the mirrors, and what good is there in being your own reflection?

Despite where they lead, Hailey can see her parents through the windows, and they are always smiling.

Jason drives home from his job at The Office, weaving through the roads and homes as he makes his way to his very own. He was happy - he nailed the Presentation, and he was gunning for that Promotion, seeing it on the horizon. He would have to tell his wife very soon - maybe they could take that vacation they always wanted, or get those wonderful gifts for the kids!   
  
Jason arrives home, and his wife warbles a greeting to him. His children run up to him and they say hello. Instead of two, there are now three, and his wife’s stomach is bulbous as she chitters to him that it is coming to term soon. He did not get the Promotion, and that’s okay. He will get it Next Time.

Jason wakes up the next day and attends his parents’ funeral. His wife and four children stand by him, whispering their sorrows and condolences to him as tears flow down his face. Still, Jason smiles, while the small part of him in the back of his mind screams in pure agony. It wonders about how just yesterday morning, he had two children, and how yesterday morning, his parents were alive.

Jason wakes up the next day and drives to work. He is elderly, and in pain as he shuffles into the car, smiling the entire time. He sees Hailey leave her home and head to the bus stop. She looks exactly the same as when Jason first saw her. They do not acknowledge each other. In the corners of his thoughts, Jason screams out to her for help.

The next day does not occur. 

The next day, Jason dies. His wife and five children eat his corpse and then head off to the neighbors to chat over lemonades and barbecue. Their voices ring out in the still air as Hailey heads to school. The voices, cheerful and upbeat, have a sad edge to them, such a pity it is to lose such a good man. There are cheers made in his honor.

The next day, Jason wakes up. He showers before dressing himself for work, heading downstairs to see his wife making breakfast in the kitchen.

It's scrambled eggs.

His favorite.

STATEMENT ENDS

[TAPE CLICKS.]

**Author's Note:**

> So.
> 
> That was weird!
> 
> I always found the aspect of mundanity strange and upsetting in and of itself - the fact that you can call into a routine that you halfheartedly cycle through because its ROUTINE, and that's what you're locked into, for better or for worse. There was also this half-baked concept of the future of yourself, or a future that you're unsure about driving you nuts. I wanted to throw in as much Spiral as I could, but I don't know if I overdid it in the process.
> 
> The suburbs are TRULY a horrifying place.


End file.
